Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala Chief Minister who has faced umpteen attacks from the BJP this week trying to make inroads into the state, has given it back to its star campaigner, Yogi Adityanath. In a stinging takedown of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Vijayan said he found it amusing that Yogi Adityanath had found time for Kerala despite the many "problems" that his state was facing.

Malayalam film actor Dileep, an accused in the actress abduction and sexual assault case, today declined to accept the post of president of a body of theatre owners, producers and distributors in Kerala.

Yogi Adityanath, surrounded by a sea of supporters, today joined the BJP's 15-day relay walk or padyatra launched in Kerala by party chief Amit Shah. Mr Shah launched the Jan Raksha (protect people) yatra yesterday in Kannur, the home base of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to highlight what the BJP says is the ruling CPM's "murder politics". Yogi Adityanath, the BJP's Hindutva mascot, focused on what he called "jihadi terror" and also raised "love jihad". Two more chief ministers, Devendra Fadnavis and Manohar Parrikar, are expected to take the baton as the BJP calls in the cavalry in Kerala, a state it has never won.

Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was freed after being kept in captivity suspectedly by ISIS for 18 months in strife-torn Yemen, called on Governor P Sathasivam at the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram today.